Our Renewable Future
A quick post about global warming, energy use, etc., inspired by this Bloomberg article about negative electricity prices.
What's going on here is that the supply of renewable energy is highly variable, since it often depends on whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, and at times there is more energy being supplied to the grid than there is demand. At that point, the only choice is to take plants offline. (The article doesn't mention it, but another alternative is to store the excess energy somehow, perhaps by pumping water up to a reservoir behind a hydroelectric plant. However, my understanding is that this is not generally an efficient approach.) The article states that traditional coal and nuclear plants are sometimes the ones that shut down for the duration of the excess, which is understandable (why use fuel when there is no need to do so?), but not ideal (the expenses of starting and stopping a traditional plant are high).
This is probably a temporary state of affairs. As the article notes, utilities will seek to get more of their power from small gas-fired plants that are cheap to start and stop. They will also probably give traditional plants some credit for supplying power that is available at all times, offsetting the expense of starting and stopping on short notice.
But maybe most importantly, utilities will try to induce their customers to use energy flexibly. The key problem is aligning production with demand, and the demand side of the equation can play a big role. For instance, buildings can install air conditioning units that operate at night when electricity is cheap, cooling down a glycerol solution. Then during the day the HVAC system only needs enough electricity to operate fans that move air through the glycerol and out through vents in the building.
My bigger picture thought is that as these changes are implemented, and the electricity supply gets greener and greener, it might have some big effects on how we live our lives. In a lot of situations we face tradeoffs between using energy and using other resources. For instance, disposable diapers use a lot of landfill space, but the water and energy needed to wash reusable diapers make it a close call in environmental terms. In a hypothetical society with 90% clean energy, that calculation probably shifts in favor of reusable diapers, at least in areas with plenty of water resources.
Of course another application is electric cars. And generally, activities that are presently considered wasteful will deserve to be reevaluated. For instance, why not have an air conditioner if it's mostly powered by solar energy? Why not use hot water to do your laundry? Etc. etc.
We're definitely not there yet, but it feels as though we are a lot closer than we were 10 years ago, and these weird price movements in the electricity industry are essentially growing pains as the renewable industry matures.
What's going on here is that the supply of renewable energy is highly variable, since it often depends on whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, and at times there is more energy being supplied to the grid than there is demand. At that point, the only choice is to take plants offline. (The article doesn't mention it, but another alternative is to store the excess energy somehow, perhaps by pumping water up to a reservoir behind a hydroelectric plant. However, my understanding is that this is not generally an efficient approach.) The article states that traditional coal and nuclear plants are sometimes the ones that shut down for the duration of the excess, which is understandable (why use fuel when there is no need to do so?), but not ideal (the expenses of starting and stopping a traditional plant are high).
This is probably a temporary state of affairs. As the article notes, utilities will seek to get more of their power from small gas-fired plants that are cheap to start and stop. They will also probably give traditional plants some credit for supplying power that is available at all times, offsetting the expense of starting and stopping on short notice.
But maybe most importantly, utilities will try to induce their customers to use energy flexibly. The key problem is aligning production with demand, and the demand side of the equation can play a big role. For instance, buildings can install air conditioning units that operate at night when electricity is cheap, cooling down a glycerol solution. Then during the day the HVAC system only needs enough electricity to operate fans that move air through the glycerol and out through vents in the building.
My bigger picture thought is that as these changes are implemented, and the electricity supply gets greener and greener, it might have some big effects on how we live our lives. In a lot of situations we face tradeoffs between using energy and using other resources. For instance, disposable diapers use a lot of landfill space, but the water and energy needed to wash reusable diapers make it a close call in environmental terms. In a hypothetical society with 90% clean energy, that calculation probably shifts in favor of reusable diapers, at least in areas with plenty of water resources.
Of course another application is electric cars. And generally, activities that are presently considered wasteful will deserve to be reevaluated. For instance, why not have an air conditioner if it's mostly powered by solar energy? Why not use hot water to do your laundry? Etc. etc.
We're definitely not there yet, but it feels as though we are a lot closer than we were 10 years ago, and these weird price movements in the electricity industry are essentially growing pains as the renewable industry matures.
posted by James | 9:32 AM
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